> Zimmad remained based in the Zeon Republic (unlike Zeonic, they did all
> their wartime design work at Side 3 rather than on the moon or on Earth).
> Since the Republic was allied with the Titans, there's a possibility that
> the company might have contributed to the Titans arsenal.

Isn't it kinda wierd how the Republic is allied with the Titans? I mean,
it's as if NATO was allied with, I dunno, Estonia or something like that,
how wierd is that?
At any rate, it might make some sense that the Titans took advantage of
indigenous labor and expertise at Side-3. One might even speculate that
wartime scientists and engineers were 'encouraged' to prove their loyalty
to the Fed/Titan cause by signing up and helping the war effort along, who
knows!
So it's possible that Zimmand incorporated itself into the Titans, while
Zeonic was absorbed by Federation manufacturing firms.... Which makes me
kinda wonder... _who_ was in charge of producing the V-Project Gundam and
GMs, and what happened to them and their production lines?

> Technically, Augusta was originally supposed to be an orthodox Federation
> design shop. But the Gaplant and Bound Doc sport Zeon-style mono-eyes, so
> they must have had some input from ex-Zeon designers...

And there are others too, right? Definately those two designs betray
some heavy Zeon-stylings and input... the Bound Dog looks like it was the
big brother (or pet!) to the Ziong!

> > constructed on Earth. (Wonder if that means it doesn't have lunar
> > titanium, hence it needed CHOBHAM armor?)
> I'm still not quite sure whether Gundarium (AKA Luna Titanium) can only be
> made in space. The Rapport Deluxe staff seem to think so, as their
> newly-published One Year War Saga has the Gundam originally produced at
> Jaburo and then shipped to Luna Two for an armor upgrade. However, this

I guess there's definately something to be said for it...

"Seems to be some magic
in that Gun-darium alloy they found,
Whenever they build a mech out of it,
it's immune to Zeon rounds!"

"Gun-dam, the robot,
was a very merry Fed
With big white limbs, and a dark blue chest
And a beard of jaunty red!"

"Though Gun-dam, the Robot
is just an anime
The fanboys hum
'if we had gun-dar-i-um....'
We could bring him to life one day...."

> would mean that most other wartime Gundams - including the Alex and RX-79
> series - couldn't possibly have Luna Titanium armor. Hm... they do seem
> kinda flimsy, actually. :-)

I think that's the thing! I mean, the GP-series seems to definately
_not_ have the original Gundam's immunity to conventional weapons (though
its somewhat questionable in the GP-01's case) And the Alex seems to have
taken damage in its chobham-less mode that ought not to have happened to
the original gundam... naturally, alot of this is due to the
non-hero-robotishness of the new Gundam serieses, so anything is possible.
But I think after seeing what Zaku and Gouf machinegun rounds can do to
the RX-79 series in 8MST, we'd _have_ to conclude that these gundams are
missing _something_ that the original had.

> Anaheim Electronics, which obtained the technology from Augusta Labs.
> Since Augusta's Gundam Mk. IV and Mk. V were supposedly based on data from
> Anaheim's Gundam Mk. III - or so claims the new G-Generation Zero game -
> this could have been a simple technology swap.

Seems like there was a rather unusual amount of technology swapping
going on. Makes me wonder if (like in RL) the actual research was being
done in 'government labs' and the results were being farmed out to the
corporations to actually get made... (part of the payment being temporary
exclusive rights to produce the technology). This is consistant with how
things are done in RL.... Of course, Gundam companies may have exclusive
R&D labs of their own.

> > What about the Powered GM?
> This is an Anaheim testbed, a GM Kai that's kitbashed to test out the
> GP01's backpack and gather performance data. It's not clear who made the GM
> Kai, since this is basically just the Katoki version of the original GM, and
> all his GMs look a lot like it.

My gut feeling has always been that the GM-Kai is pretty much just a
"0083 GM"... since we never see the presumably ubuiquitous 'standard GMs'
in that series.

> The GM Custom and Quell, at least, were Augusta exclusives. (Now I need to
> take a look at the MG GM Custom manual!) A similar scenario could certainly

When I get mine I'll photocopy it for you, howzat?

> apply to many other GM variants, such as the GM Commando, GM Sniper II, GM
> II, and GM III. Even during the war, we have the GM [E] developed by the
> Earth Federation Space Force and the GM [G] developed separately by the
> Federation's ground forces.

Right... I guess it makes alot of sense that each GM variant would be
independantly produced in a different factory perhaps even by different
companies, given specs/blueprints produced by the Federation government or
something... This would go a long way towards explaining the unusual
numbers of special variants, and also why the GMs have _always_ been
general purpose. (I.e., you might have a whole lot of GM snipers, or GM
Sniper teams in a particular area simply because they got a shipment from
a particular factory or are closer to the supplier.... not necessarily
because they needed them specifically.) It might also explain why we never
see a squad of GMs with one GM-N Commander, one GM-Sniper, a GM-Cannon and
a couple regular GMs...

> > Of course, does the model-mag have any explanation for why the GM-Quells
> > had completely disappeared from the Federal army just 3 years later,
> No, of course not. :-) However, the GM Quell is designed primarily for use

Well, I thought they'd say: "The Quell became associated with colony
gassings and as a public relations ploy, the Titans ceased using them in
0087" or something like that.

> inside colonies (that's why it has few manuevering verniers, and all those
> ground-level sensors on its ankles). It's possible that Quells were still

Hmmm... for avoiding ground clutter I assume!

> around in Zeta, but just off-camera. On the other hand, since they lack
> panoramic display cockpits, they may have been phased out in favor of the
> slightly more advanced general-purpose GM II.

Ironic, eh? Since the GMII seems to use the original GM Chassis, while
the Quell is a completely new chassis, and which, apparently, has a
spherical cockpit area as well!

> No, the movable frame was originally developed by the Titans, and first
> perfected with the Gundam Mk. II. Anaheim has some idea what the Titans were

So the Mk.II was produced by the Titans, right? (I assume they have
their own production facilities and factories and stuff?)

> to Augusta's Alex), and the GP series were pretty much the first mobile
> suits with add-on "binders" that function as part of the maneuvering system,

Sorta predecessors to the Type-100 then, eh?

> but the GP designs were pre-movable frame. (Not that you can tell from the
> MG kit's fancy leg structures, ahem!)

Heh heh heh!
You know, if they just gave us some internal structure in the arms like
the Gelgoog, you could actually make a "Naked GM" with the Quell/Custom.

> > See, the thing that kinda bugs me is that the Quell retains the ankle
> > sensor units of the GP-03, which is something I'd expect to be exclusive
> Ostensibly they're anti-ground sensors, though you're right that this
> completely contradicts their use on the GP03S. See above for some guesses as
> to why they don't appear in Zeta (aside from the obvious, namely that they
> hadn't been invented yet ;-).

Heh heh heh!

A word on Monoeyes... the GM kits seem to imply that they _are_ an
exclusively Zeon-esque design motif. I remember hearing a long time ago
that GMs were supposedly equipped with monoeyes hidden behind their
visors, but the detail plates behind the MG GM and GM-Q/Ns seem to suggest
that the Feds have always used a completely different imaging system on
their machines. This actually does help explain the Gundam faceplate
though, as it now seems to be extra armor to protect the sensor area on
prototypes (I.e., much more likely to have debris and junk flying into the
sensors, and needing an unobstructed view less than combat-duty GMs)